386 THE DEPTHS OF THE. SEA. (CHAP. VIII. 
23°3 C. at the beginning of December, while the 
sea-water beyond the stream showed only 16°9 C. 
Under north latitude 40—41° the water is, accord- 
ing to Humboldt, at 22°5 C. within, and 17°5 C. 
without the stream.” ! 
The Gulf-stream off the coast of North America 
has been most carefully examined by the officers of 
the United States Coast Survey, at first under the 
superintendence of Professor Bache, and_ latterly 
under the direction of the present able head of the 
bureau, Professor Pierce. In 1860 Professor Bache 
published an account of the general result.’ Four- 
teen sections through the Gulf-stream had been 
carefully surveyed at intervals of about 100 miles 
along the coast—the first almost within the Gulf 
of Mexico, from Fortingas to Havana, and the last 
off Cape Cod, lat. 41° N., where the stream loses all 
parallelism with the American coast and trends to 
the eastward. These sections fully illustrate the 
leading phenomena during this earlier part of its 
course of this wonderful current, which Professor 
Bache well characterizes as “the great hydrographic 
feature of the United States.”’ 
Opposite Fortingas, passing along the Cuban coast, 
the stream is unbroken and the current feeble; the 
temperature at the surface is about 26°°7 C. Issuing 
from the Strait of Bemini, the current is turned 
nearly directly northwards by the form of the land; 
1 Professor Buff, op. cit. p. 199. 
* Lecture on the Gulfstream, prepared at the request of the 
American Association for the Advancement of Science, by A. D. Bache, - 
Superintendent U.S. Coast Survey. From the American Journal of 
Science and Arts, vol. xxx. November 1860. 
